HEA 501: HOME

About the Libraries

Our collection includes over 2 million books, over 70,000 e-journals; nearly 400 databases, and another 2 million titles in microforms.

The Central Reading Room (Main Reference Desk), Science & Engineering Library (North Reading Room) and Music Library are on the on 1st floor of Melville Library. The entrance to the Main Stacks (Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences collections) is on the 3rd Floor. There are several Branch Libraries on campus as well.

The Health Sciences Library is separate library system located on the East Campus. You have access to their collection, both in print and online.

For graduate students: 100 books, lending period is extended to the end of the currently-enrolled semester. 3 DVDs, with a one-week borrowing period.

Renewals: 3 times if no one is waiting for the material. Can be done online via STAR.

Fines: $0.25/day, $85/book – Card is blocked at $5.

Recalls/Holds can be done online via STARS.

Photocopies: $.10 a page. You can put money on your student ID for copy machines. Copy machines also accept change and bills. The Photocopy Center is on the 3rd Floor of Melville, near Circulation.

Some Search Tricks

Here are some easy tricks that can help with your searching:

Putting an AND between words will search for BOTH words on a webpage or in an article. When you do a normal Google search, you are doing an AND search.

EXAMPLE: immigration and employment will only give you web pages or articles that have both of those words. This means you will get fewer results, but they should be better results.

Putting QUOTATION MARKS around a phrase will search for web pages or articles that have that exact phrase. This is a very useful trick. It will cut down on the number of bad results. Be careful not to include too many words inside the quotation marks, because that's EXACTLY what will be searched.

EXAMPLE: “genetic engineering” will only give you web pages or articles with that exact phrase. Other examples are "climate change," "no child left behind," "body image."

An ASTERISK (*) search is very useful when similar words are being used to talk about a topic. It searches for all the various words using the same root.

Top Database Picks

Full text & Abstracts. 1929-present. The database is a compilation of previous education databases, specifically Education Index Retrospective (1929-1983), Education Abstracts, Full Text, and Research Complete. Full text supplied for more than 1700 journals, 200 extra full-text journals and 550+ books. Also included are conference papers, article citations, and links to some ERIC documents. Subjects covered include adult and continuing education, distance learning, government funding, multicultural/ethnic education, social issues, student counseling, vocational education and more. Levels covered range from early childhood to higher education.

Coverage begins with the first issue of a journal, some as early as the 1600s, and continues up until 1-to-5 years ago. An online archive of core scholarly journals in most fields of study. Comprised of high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. Not a source for recent articles.

Access to Other Research Libraries

Through the University's membership in various Library consortiums, Stony Brook students, staff and faculty have access to, and/or borrowing privileges at, numerous other research libraries on Long Island, in the greater New York area, and throughout the U.S., Canada, and other countries.

OCLC Research Library Partnership (formerly Research Libraries Group)

The University Libraries' membership in the OCLC Research Library Partnership (formerly the Research Libraries Group - RLG) allows Stony Brook students, staff, and faculty with current ID cards to enter and use many major libraries in the United States, Canada and abroad.

In our geographical region, other libraries in the program include: Columbia, NYU, The New York Public Library, The New School, American Museum of Natural History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New-York Historical Society, Cornell, Princeton, Rutgers, The University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

Stony Brook ID holders visiting these institutions may use materials; however, borrowing privileges are not usually available.

Students, staff, and faculty are urged to call ahead to a particular library, before actually going there, to confirm that they will be granted access at their time of arrival. Also, if they need to use a branch library within one of the participating library systems, it should be confirmed beforehand that the branch also takes part in the program and will allow access.

Research Loan Program (Long Island Library Resources Council)

The Long Island Library Resources Council (LILRC) is a regional multi-type library organization serving academic, special, public, hospital and school libraries and library systems in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The LILRC Research Loan Program (RLP), a reciprocal borrowing agreement between member libraries, allows Stony Brook students, staff and faculty to use and borrow material from numerous institutions on Long Island, including Adelphi University, Dowling College, Nassau and Suffolk Community Colleges, St. Joseph's College, Touro Law Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Nassau and Suffolk Public Library Systems.

Students, staff and faculty interested in borrowing material through the Research Loan Program must visit the Reference Desk in the Central Reading Room of Melville Library for an RLP pass.

An up-to-date list of these libraries is also available at the service desk in Circulation Services, 3rd floor of the Melville Library.

New York Public Library

Any person who lives, works, attends school or pays property taxes in New York State is eligible to receive a New York Public Library card free of charge. This gives researchers the opportunity to use important collections in the NYPL system, check out material, and access a wide array of useful electronic resources from on-site or, in a few cases, from home. See the NYPL web site for more information on getting a card.